Summary

In this chapter, we talked about extending Ansible. You learned that there are two types of extensions for Ansible. The first is an Ansible module, and the second one is an Ansible plugin. Ansible modules provide developers with the ability to add functionality to Ansible running on target hosts, whereas plugins extend the capabilities of the control server.

You learned how to set up a local development environment for both Ansible modules and Ansible plugins. Once we had the development environment taken care of, we looked at how to write modules using a Hello World example and how to extend Ansible with a new plugin that overrides functionality within the core Ansible plugin solution.

After that, we explored the plugin architecture and learned the various extension points that can be leveraged. This included action plugins, controller plugins, var plugins, and more.

In the next and final chapter, we will take a look at Ansible Galaxy. Ansible Galaxy is a user-managed distribution...